News briefs and information from Federal agencies and Capitol Hill on government activities, legislation, and grants of interest to the telemedicine, telehealth, and health IT community. Edited by Carolyn Bloch.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

NQF Introduces New Tool

The National Quality Forum (NQF) launched the beta version of the “Quality Positioning System” (QPS), a web-based tool for finding and exploring ways to use NQF endorsed measures. QPS was developed with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to help users search in a variety of ways, such as by measure names, numbers, or key search terms as well as by condition, care setting, or data sources.

Each measure within QPS describes the numerator denominator and any exclusions plus the name of the measure developer, the endorsement date, whether it has been risk-adjusted, and whether eMeasures are available. Up to three measures can be selected at a time for side-by side comparison.

Additionally, QPS will allow users to create their own lists of NQF-endorsed measures in customized portfolios to fit specific interests or needs, share portfolios with others, and view and copy portfolios that others have generated. This function is designed to help users see other real-world application of measures in public reporting and in other programs.

“Use of standardized measures in healthcare is fundamental to promoting better, more affordable care, and to improve the health of individuals and their communities,” said Janet Corrigan, PhD, President and CEO of NQF. “QPS will make it easier to find nationally vetted and endorsed measures, so that organizations can more confidently build their public reporting and quality programs to produce comparable and useful performance results.”

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